


Don't Believe in Me

by thepinupchemist



Series: Retail Hell with the Young Avengers [3]
Category: Young Avengers, Young Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Retail, Bipolar Billy, Bipolar Disorder, Childhood Trauma, Family Issues, First Kiss, M/M, Pansexual Tommy, Shopping Malls, Tommy POV, reference to a past suicide attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-31 18:08:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20119372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepinupchemist/pseuds/thepinupchemist
Summary: A whole lot of bullshit got Tommy Shepherd to this point.Hot Puzzle Guy -- David -- doesn't actually seem like bullshit.He can roll with that.





	Don't Believe in Me

**Author's Note:**

> WELL I didn't actually expect to finish the next installment so fast, but the heart wants what the heart wants, and there's not enough ThinkFast content, so here we are.
> 
> Please do heed the tags! They are why I've decided to label this one as M instead of T. I'll elaborate in the end notes for anyone worried about triggers.

**Soundtrack: Jesus of Suburbia – Green Day**

_ **Don’t Believe in Me** _

Tommy watched, pressed against the window pane, as Billy flipped his laptop closed to take his night meds. The orange bottles rattled as he shook one pill each from a pair of them, tossed them down his throat, and chased them with – _gross, __man_ – whatever was left of a Mountain Dew on his desk. Billy went through the motions of getting ready for bed, and Tommy pretended to mimic him, shedding the clothes he threw on in a haze of anger after Mom – Rebecca? Mom? Mom. – lectured him about talking to them and letting people in and treating himself with respect and blah, blah, fucking blah.

Tommy climbed into the top bunk in his boxers, and Billy turned out the light.

Had anyone asked fifteen-year-old Tommy Shepherd where he’d be at nineteen, he would have said, _easy – I’ll be dead._ Or maybe in big boy prison, or maybe homeless and whacked out on whatever drug he could get his hands on, because the highs felt better than anything real ever could.

Exactly zero of his sordid musings about his future from a box in juvie included suburbia. Never in a million years could he have dreamed up a long lost twin brother who didn’t know how to use eyeliner and had, at minimum, three separate pairs of space pants.

And took medications for Bipolar II.

That a doctor diagnosed him with.

After he tried to kill himself.

And Tommy found him, in the bathtub, with red all around him and skin chalk-white, eyes closed –

_Don’t think about that._

Tommy shifted to his other side and curled his knees up close to his chest. He listened to Billy rustle around, tossing from side to side like he did every night until that one nighttime medication kicked in and he passed out. Before the medication, Billy slept like Tommy did – in short bursts, a few hours at a time.

No. Tommy wasn’t like Billy. He didn’t sleep because, even with three years in between now and the absolute bullshit that was the life that came before this, Tommy’s crappy brain ran on bone-deep survival instinct. Watch your stuff. Watch your back. Watch yourself. Don’t trust anyone. Don’t draw attention to yourself.

Below, as Tommy’s brain worked a mile a minute, Billy’s breath evened out into sleep. Tommy waited for a couple minutes, then slid off the top bunk, socked feet landing with a muffled _thump_ against the carpet.

He hitched running shorts over his hips and a t-shirt over his head. Tommy already walked up and down every street in the neighborhood today, but still, the restlessness vibrated under his skin like a swarm of bees. He had pissed the day away in the strip mall a couple blocks up, wandering the aisles of the grocery store like he did when he was a kid and didn’t want to go home.

Tommy tried not to do that to the Kaplans, but sometimes they made it real fuckin’ hard.

This time, he didn’t use the window. Jeff and Rebecca knew he sometimes ran at night to clear his head, to wear himself down until his thoughts didn’t go so fast, and he had their blessing as long as he locked the front door when he came back in.

Tommy pulled his headphones (a Hanukkah gift from Jeff – Dad. Hanukkah gift from _Dad_) over his ears, shoved his shoes on his feet, yanked open the front door, and ran. His music thumped so loud in his ears that his brain vibrated.

Why couldn’t he get his shit together? He wasn’t taking classes at the community college like Billy. He didn’t even know that he wanted to do. Tommy didn’t really spend his money, but he didn’t know what he was saving it for, either.

_Just in case_, his lizard brain said. Just in case of what? Just in case the Kaplans decided they were done with him like all the other families that came before him? Fat chance of that. They wanted Tommy around, the absolute madmen.

Except that Billy –

_Don’t think about that_.

Tommy ran harder, his sneakers slapping against the sidewalk. His legs didn’t burn – not yet. The air he gulped in went into his lungs sharp and clean. He ran, and he ran, and he kept running, making the same lap over and over again, playing along with Pokemon GO without really seeing what he was doing, his thumbprint smeared in a circle as he caught blind, desperate for something to do with his hands while his brain refused to shut the fuck up.

Movement out of the corner of Tommy’s eye startled him into a stop. He jerked his head to the cul-de-sac two streets up from theirs.

A figure padded out onto their front porch with a book under their arm. When they flopped into one of the plastic chairs arranged in a row and the porch light shone on them, Tommy’s chest clenched with a bright, stinging panic.

Hot Puzzle Guy. David. His name was David. He wore glasses and ordered something different every time he came to the food court on his lunch, polite and serious-faced, and so incredibly dorky in his stupid Puzzle Factory polo shirt.

He didn’t have that polo shirt now. No, he wore a threadbare t-shirt that stretched across his chest in just the right way, and Tommy’s throat went dry at the sight. He didn’t know what to do with that, had never known what to do with the fact that guys made him go a little funny in the head sometimes like everyone else did, too. He hadn’t admitted it aloud until he and Billy were fighting about who-even-remembered and Billy accused him of being a homophobe –

(“I don’t care that you like guys, dick-for-brains! I like guys!” Tommy had shouted, and smacked his hand over his mouth a moment later. He’d looked for a way out of there, because fuck fuck fuck, he wasn’t supposed to tell anybody that, never ever ever, but he did, and –

Billy wrinkled his nose. “You’re...gay?”

“No, idiot,” Tommy, exasperated, said. “I think everyone’s hot. Jesus, is that such a crime?”

“So, what? You’re, like, pansexual?” Billy asked.

Tommy didn’t know what that meant, not until Billy punched ‘pansexual’ into Google on his phone and threw the results in Tommy’s face.

So, yeah, sure, that’s what he was. Tommy never needed a name for it, but if he had to slap something on, pansexual did just fine.)

The thing was that Tommy only ever fucked girls, and like three months ago, some blue-haired enby kid that worked at the Sbarro in the food court, but no matter how hot he thought a dude might be, he never worked up the balls to do something about it.

And there was David on his porch, only two streets away, with a big-ass book in his lap. His eyes met Tommy’s, and he lifted a hand.

Tommy made a peace sign back, and bolted.

Real fucking smooth, Tommy.

**

Tommy started about a thousand text messages to David.

_hey thx for the other night sry I was – _

No.

_hey this is tommy_

No.

_sry you saw that shit_

Fuck no.

When nothing fit, Tommy gave up, shoved his phone in his pocket, and chewed on his lip. He ran at night and he did his job, and David stopped coming by for his lunches. David ordered food at the gyro joint instead, and sat with Eli in the furthest corner of the food court, away from Tommy.

That was good. That was better.

David said please and thank you like a goddamned gentleman. He laughed with his whole body. He also said ‘that’s bullshit’ with his whole body, and Tommy could see him doing it now, staring down Eli with turbo-skepticism written all over his dumb hot face.

The point was that David was better than Tommy could ever hope to be, and the fact that David babysat Tommy through one of his worst lapses in recent memory made him want to throw up all over again. Tommy barely fucking remembered that night. Everything came in flashes – smoking whatever Lisa handed to him out behind the shed next to Kate’s pool, dancing and dancing and dancing with a drink in his hand but not always the same one, scrambling up the stairs when his stomach turned, and David.

David who wasn’t David yet, but Hot Puzzle Guy. HPG for short, at least as soon as he spilled his guts to Billy.

By accident, for the record. Tommy only told Billy about Hot Puzzle Guy to shut him up about Teddy for ten entire seconds.

Un-fucking-fortunately for Tommy, Billy could multitask. He could whine about Teddy _and_ give Tommy everlasting shit for (“It’s not a fucking crush, Billy.”) admiring a dude that wore a polo shirt for a living.

“Hey, asshole,” Lisa said. She threw a rag at him. “Do your job.”

Tommy made a V with his fingers and stuck his tongue through it. She hit him, and he laughed, and pretended the puzzle piece emoji contact in his phone wasn’t burning a hole through the pocket of his jeans.

**

“Are you even listening to me?” Kate asked.

Tommy blinked. “Uhh,” he managed. “Was it about America?”

“Lucky guess,” Kate complained, and threw one of far too many throw pillows at Tommy’s face. What was with rich people and throw pillows? They sucked at actually being pillows, and somehow, every throw pillow Tommy had ever met smelled funny, all factory-fresh and Pintrest-perfect.

Tommy caught the pillow and chucked it onto the floor. “Tell me again?” he suggested.

Kate stuffed her cold feet under his thigh where they sat on the couch in her _Home Theater _(capital letters necessary). She said, “You’ve been on another planet the whole night. What is going on with you? The last time you got like this was –”

_After you found Billy_, she did not say, but she didn’t have to.

Tommy tensed, but before he could stand up and find a reason to get out of there, Kate snagged the sleeve of his hoodie and pulled him closer to her. She tugged his head into her lap so that his cheek smushed against her purple yoga pants, and stuck her hand in his hair. Kate scraped her manicured fingernails over his scalp. Tommy let her, because for whatever reason, Kate got a free pass to touch him whenever she wanted.

They tried dating for about two seconds, and then friends with bennies for about two more. Neither worked out so hot, but somehow fancy movie nights with fancy candy from the fancy candy store at the mall stuck. Tommy’s whole mouth tasted like gourmet coconut jelly beans.

“I ruined your birthday,” Tommy said, stilted.

Kate’s hand stilled in his hair. “You didn’t ruin my birthday,” she told him. “You’re giving yourself way too much credit, for one. And two, you’re not gonna throw me off the scent. Is this HPG related?”

“He stopped buying noodles,” said Tommy. Why did he say that?

“Then fuck him,” Kate replied. “He doesn’t deserve you if he can’t handle a little vomit.”

Tommy didn’t tell her that he also had David’s phone number, vomit aside, and that he’d chosen not to text it because he couldn’t think of anything to say to explain one of the messiest versions of himself.

Kate knew him because she helped Tommy pick out a new pair of running shoes when he wandered, tense as a motherfucker, into Dick’s Sporting Goods with one of his first paychecks in his bank account. He could have asked the Kaplans for running shoes – could have told them his sneakers had holes in the bottoms and his socks got soaked every time it rained – but Tommy preferred to fend for himself.

Only he didn’t know anything about running shoes, because he was a dumbass. But Kate didn’t treat him like the dumbass he was for even a second. She found Tommy green and orange running shoes he loved more than any other object on the planet, and somehow roped him into coming to her softball game with Cassie that same weekend all in one fell swoop.

Tommy went the game to avoid being around Billy, and accidentally made his best friend. So shit worked itself out, probably.

“You think people like us ever get to be happy?” Tommy accidentally asked.

Kate narrowed her eyes at him, but didn’t stop stroking her hand through his hair. “If we let ourselves, maybe,” she answered, her shrug all-too-casual, “but that’s easier said than done. Why are you asking?”

Tommy reached over to the glossy candy bags that littered the custom coffee table and stuck some kinda zig-zaggy chocolate in his mouth to avoid answering her.

**

Tommy wasn’t good with words. Like, at all. Even a little. Writing them down especially. He sucked at that in particular.

He could, however, talk himself out of a sticky situation.

And David was one hell of a situation.

Tommy finished out his shift with a middle finger to Lisa, who grinned at him and flipped him off right back. On another day, he might have bothered Billy while he waited for his dumb twin brother to finish up at Hot Topic, but Tommy was a man on a mission. If Billy could go on a date and come back looking stupid and gooey with actual hickeys on his neck, then Tommy could speak to David like a normal-ass human being.

Still, Tommy hovered outside of Puzzle Factory, clenching and unclenching his hands in his pockets as he watched David move behind the glass panels. Surrounded by weird toys and colorful boardgame boxes, David pushed his glasses up on his nose. He smiled, then crouched down to talk to some kid playing with one of those tangled messes of metal you were supposed to be able to pull apart if you moved the pieces in just the right way.

Okay, just fucking do it.

David was still helping the kid and her mom when Tommy strode in, so Tommy fiddled with the bright pieces of a traffic game on display and pretended he knew what the hell he was supposed to do with it.

“You looking for something in particular?”

David.

Tommy shoved the plastic pink car in his hand back on the board and said, “Uh, yeah. You.”

David stared. Then, evenly, he responded, “I’m at work right now.”

“Shit,” Tommy said. “Sorry. That’s – yeah. Cool. Sorry to bother you or whatever.”

“I’m off at five,” David said, then.

Tommy paused, mid-escape. “Yeah?”

“We can talk then,” David told him.

**

David lowered his body onto the bench by the fountain outside Puzzle Factory. He’d untucked his polo shirt from his slacks and held a yellow jacket in his hand.

“I meant to text you,” Tommy said.

David didn’t say anything, but one brow jumped over the thick frame of his glasses. Tommy wanted to rip those glasses off David’s face and kiss his stupid eyebrow, and what the fuck kind of impulse was that?

“I don’t actually remember much about Kate’s party,” admitted Tommy.

“I’m not surprised. You were in rough shape," David said, then worried at his lower lip with his teeth before he added, "I have to admit I have no idea where you're going with this.”

Tommy rubbed at his arm. “Listen. I’m not – you’re smart, right? I’m not all that smart, but you seem cool, and taking care of my dumb ass – that was cool too. You wanna hang out sometime? I suck a little less when I’m sober and I kick ass at racing games. What do you say?”

David stared at him, and after a moment, Tommy’s chest started to compress in an awful, awful way.

“I’m going to be completely honest,” David said. “Your brother told me you call me ‘Hot Puzzle Guy.’ So when you’re asking me to ‘hang out,’ are you saying you want me to blue-shell you into the stratosphere, or are you angling for something more?”

Tommy blinked rapidly. “Both?” he said, and winced. His voice came out weak, even to his ears. He didn’t know how to do this. He didn’t know how to do a lot of things, and David seemed like he knew a lot, and Tommy wished he were on that level.

David hummed a noise of thought. “You don’t sound like you know what you want. But that’s okay. Next time you can’t sleep, I know you know where to find me. I’ll blue-shell you into the stratosphere –”

“Not on your life, puzzles.”

David laughed, every line of his body lighting up with joy. “Yeah, okay. We’ll see how that plays out. We can figure out the rest of it later. I have to get out of here – I have a class tonight – but I hope I’ll see you around, Tommy.”

With that, David sat straighter. He studied Tommy for a moment more, then, after something like a sigh, he leaned forward. David brushed his lips over Tommy’s, and Tommy could barely breathe. He didn’t have time to react before David pulled away, a wry half-smile on his face.

“I hope you figure out what you need,” he said.

Tommy gaped at David as he walked away, shrugging his shoulders into his yellow hoodie.

**

“Did you make up your mind?”

Breathless, Tommy sweated in front of David, who sat with legs sprawled open in sweatpants. The book closed on his lap read _The Bastard Brigade_, which didn’t sound like the most boring thing to read on the planet.

Not that Tommy could sit still enough to finish an entire book.

“Nope,” Tommy answered. “I never know what the fuck is going on, but you’re about ten times less boring than the rest of my life. Let’s do Mario Kart.”

David chuckled, passing a hand over his close-cropped hair. “Okay,” he agreed. “Here we go, then.”

That was a good way of putting it.

“Here we fuckin’ go,” Tommy echoed.

**Author's Note:**

> *Warnings: Tommy thinks back to some instances of childhood trauma. He also recalls finding Billy unconscious after a suicide attempt in which he slit his wrists in the bathtub. 
> 
> The Bastard Brigade is a real book! It's a history & physics book about the spies that prevented the Nazi atomic bomb by Sam Kean.
> 
> You can find me @thepinupchemist on twitter if you want to follow whatever inane YA/MCU headcanons I've got going on, see where I am with writing, or see too many of my selfies.


End file.
